The Best Resources for a Bird Themed Unit: art projects, products, and children’s literature

If you are a teacher, homeschool parent, or recently thrown into the role of teaching your children this spring due to Covid-19, the resources below will be your one stop for a bird theme unit. We are huge nature fans and love using birds as a source of inspiration for many of our art projects. […]

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Printmaking Using a Common Household Kitchen Item!

I have been working on eLearning lesson ideas for my students at home. My goal is to show them art processes and ideas that are simple and easy for parents to assist them with without being overwhelmed with multiple steps and mess. I also know that many homes may not have an abundance of art […]

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Spooky Spider Art

This post contains affiliate links. This spider art is a perfect project for little ones during the Halloween season and only requires a few simple materials. Read the book, The Very Busy Spider, by Eric Carle for a literacy connection then follow the easy steps below! Materials: Old book pages (second hand stores or yard […]

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Color Theory Flowers inspired by the book, The Tiny Seed

April showers bring May flowers! The end of the school year is here but my 1st graders have been working on these COLOR THEORY FLOWERS since early spring! We explored color mixing with the primary colors using a variety of different paint processes. We used those papers to make flowers inspired by the book, The […]

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Mixed Media Salt Dough Nests

We made mixed media nests several weeks ago and my girls REALLY enjoyed making them.  It was a perfect nature prompt for the spring season. My oldest kept saying how much fun she was having. Some of my projects are big flops with her so this was an art win!! This art invitation is a […]

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Floating Chalk Prints

Have you ever tried Floating Chalk Prints? If not, you are missing out! I am late to the game on this process and fell in love when I first saw these beautiful prints by Arielle from Art Camp. We gave it a try the other day and we were amazed at the results. So beautiful […]

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Mixed Media Rainbow Art Inspired By Children’s Literature

Children’s literature is a great source of inspiration for many of our projects. Check out our latest Art/Lit project below and then see some more book based art ideas at the end of this post. This post contains affiliate links. Our Mixed Media Rainbow Art inspired by the book, How the Crayons Saved the Rainbow by […]

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Top 25 Nature and Earth Day Books for Children

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle! That is our jam. We love nature and get crafty with recyclables as much as possible…that’s why we are The Art Garden! I wanted to share with you this resource of nature and Earth Day related books that we love and use with many of our projects. We own about half of […]

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New Gig and International Dot Day 2018

With the exception of my last post on our Funky Chickens, it has been a while since I posted on The Art Garden. I have still been occasionally active on my Instagram page, but other than that I have been hitting the floor running with my new gig…I’m back to teaching art!

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Make These Funky Chickens With 5 Common Recyclables!

Did you know that September is National Chicken Month? Yeah, me either. Once I heard it was, though, I had to dig through our crafty archives to share these Funky Chickens with you all before the month was over. We made these last fall and they are proudly hanging in our art space, paying homage […]

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Art Inspired by the Book, Where Oliver Fits

Children’s books has always been one of my favorite sources of inspiration for art projects and was a big part of my art curriculum when I used to teach. This post contains affiliate links. We recently picked up the book, Where Oliver Fits by Cale Atkinson, from our local library and I fell in love […]

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